


Drawing Together

by iarrannme



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Michelle Jones, Bisexual Peter Parker, College, F/F, F/M, Gen, High School, M/M, May Parker is a quietly fierce badass, Multi, Open Relationships, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Spideychelle Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iarrannme/pseuds/iarrannme
Summary: “OK, class.  Today: soulmarks.”  Coach Wilson sounded no more enthusiastic than he did any other day.Michelle slid down in her seat with a sigh, wishing Principal Morita had let her argue her case for skipping the required Health/Sex Ed courses if she could pass the finals.Or, a Michelle Jones/Peter Parker soulmates AU with jelly-beans and coconut-ginger milkshakes.
Relationships: Liz Allan & Peter Parker, Liz Allan/Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & her grandfather, Michelle Jones's Father/Michelle Jones's Mother, Michelle Jones/Original Character(s), Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Peter Parker & Flash Thompson, Peter Parker & his parents, Peter Parker/Original Character(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90
Collections: Bisexual Visibility, Magi's Soulmate Favorites, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Queer Characters Collection, Spideychelle Week 2020





	Drawing Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Faileas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faileas/gifts).



> Thanks to Faileas for the beta and the art.

## 1

### Petey

“Wanna swing, Petey?”

Did he ever! “Switch sides,” he ordered. They had to do it _right_.

Daddy sighed slightly and Mommy rolled her eyes, amused, but they switched and offered their hands. His right to Mommy’s left, his left to Daddy’s right: the parent-marks on his palms pressed to the child-marks on theirs. OK. Now they could do it.

“One! Two! Three! Go!” Mommy chanted, and he ran forward between them and threw himself into the air, laughing, flying, the sun bright against his squinched-shut eyes, their hands bearing him up.

### Chelly-Bean

“ _Another_ story?” Pop-Pop heaved an extravagant sigh, but Chelly-Bean wasn’t fooled. She grabbed his right hand and spread it open, poking at the thick line of the old child-mark across his palm. “You wanna hear that one _again_?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Well,” he settled in obediently, “when your mama was a little bitty thing, she didn’t sleep so well. And _her_ mama was nursing her ’round the clock, so she needed all the sleep she could get. Now sometimes your mama would let me rock her to sleep.” He paused so Chelly-Bean could cuddle up, imagining, and put his arms around her, rocking his chair. “Other times your mama would let me sing her to sleep.” He hummed into Chelly-Bean’s hair. She giggled. “But most of the time your mama did not want rocking or singing. She wanted –”

“Reading!” Chelly-Bean shouted.

“Who’s telling this story? Yes, reading. So I would hold her with one arm, like this, and hold a book on my other hand, like that, and that’s why my child-mark is there, because that’s where the spine of the book would end up.”

“And Mama’s parent-mark from you is where your arm went across her belly.”

Pop-Pop nodded, as though he hadn’t confirmed this guess a million gajillysquillion times before. “She musta felt real safe and loved there. _Now_ who takes up all the space in my lap? I oughta charge rent.”

Chelly-Bean didn’t let him distract her. “And my mark from Mama is on the back of my head where she held me and from Daddy is on my forehead where he always checked for fever and their marks from me are on their chins where I used to grab them when I was a little kid and Mama’s mark from Daddy is coming in on the side of her neck and Daddy’s mark from Mama is coming in on his shoulder–”

She stopped to take a breath and missed the faint frown Pop-Pop quickly banished.

“– and you and Mom-Mom never got marks but it’s ok because you still really loved each other and not everybody gets marks even if they love each other lots and LOTS and Mama’s mark from Mom-Mom –”

If he let her, and he always did, she’d spin her tale four generations deep. If she asked, and she always did, he'd add three more, building a sparkling web in her mind that held her like a spider, suspended but secure, as she swung until it was her turn to spin the next link.

## 2

### Peter

If Mommy had held her left hand like _this_ , then he’d bring his right hand up like _this_ , and they’d clasp hands like _that_ , tighter, tighter, press –

“Peter?” His aunt stepped carefully into the room – his room, now, his old furniture in the unfamiliar space mixed with things his aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to move yet. She saw how tightly he was clasping his hands. “Oh, honey,” she murmured, kneeling on the floor next to him. “Can I hug you?”

He nodded and leaned into her, but didn’t relax his grip even when she brought a gentle hand up to his. She said nothing, just massaged his hands as his breathing hitched again and again. Finally he whispered, “Aunt May, what if I lose their marks?”

She pulled back so he could see her face. “See this? My grandmother used to stroke down my forehead right there to help me sleep. She’s been gone thirty years now. Yours will fade and go silver like mine, but they won’t go away. Promise.” She gently coaxed his hands open so he could see the marks still there.

No one had marks from him, now. “Will you and Uncle Ben – will I –” He couldn’t make himself ask.

“You’re safe here, Peter, and we love you,” she said firmly. “I don't know what our skin might do or when, but Ben and I have already made our decision.” She freed one hand to retrieve a new package of markers from his nightstand’s top drawer. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Red and blue.” Red was Daddy’s favorite shirt, blue was Mommy’s sparkly nail polish.

She drew a small heart in each color on the inside of her elbow. “We’re choosing to have marks from you, Peter. If you’d like marks from us, you tell us what and where.” She put the markers down in his reach and offered her elbow. “You can color them in, if you want, or leave them.”

He looked at his parent-marks. Had they started to fade already? No. “What if we never get real marks?”

She shrugged, a glint in her eye. “Then I guess we’ll go through a lotta markers.”

He didn’t quite smile, but his hand was steady as he picked up the blue marker and settled her arm across his lap.

### Chelle

Chelle kept her eyes closed and her breathing regular. They were right outside her door, speaking quietly – trying not to wake her or let Pop-Pop, still in the kitchen, hear them.

“I can’t base my happiness on whether I’ve successfully hyperpigmented a patch of skin.” Mama sounded tired. What did she mean?

“But we’re meant for each other! You _know_ that! Nobody’s marks start as fast as ours did, you’ve got to know – if we just tried harder they’d keep coming in.”

“We’ve _been_ trying harder for a long time. Getting them to come in is – it’s not my goal anymore.”

“You don’t want to be happy?” Daddy had that tone in his voice like when he was pretending not to understand. Usually it was funny.

“I do want to be happy. I don’t want to measure whether I’ve managed it by looking for soulmarks.”

“So you’re giving up?” Chelle had never heard scorn in Daddy’s voice before. She didn’t like it.

“Not at all.” Mama had that calm voice she got when she’d made a decision she knew you weren’t going to like.

“What’s that mean?”

“If you realize you’ve been walking away from your goal for a long time, it’s pretty stupid to keep going the same direction but even faster.”

“That’s all I am to you, a wrong direction?” Daddy’s voice got a little louder.

Mama’s didn’t. “You’re the person who showed me someone could fall in love with me. The father of my child. The only other person she shares marks with. I’ll never not care about you. But our marks are fading because _we’re_ fading. It’s time to stop.”

Chelle put one hand on her forehead, the other on the back of her head, and didn’t let herself hear any more.

## 3

### Michelle

“OK, class. Today: soulmarks.” Coach Wilson sounded no more enthusiastic than he did any other day.

Michelle slid down in her seat with a sigh, wishing Principal Morita had let her argue her case for skipping the required Health/Sex Ed courses if she could pass the finals.

“I got so many soulmarks on my dick I don’t even know what color it is underneath,” Flash announced to eye-rolls and groans.

“Can Flash have detention for being an idiot?” Abe asked.

“Flash, that makes five Idiot Detentions you owe,” Coach Wilson said. “OK, let’s make this fast: No, marks nearly never show up right after a child is born or a couple has sex for the first time, it takes months to years for parent-child marks and for adult couples years to decades –”

“Decades?” Flash squawked. “ _Decades_ of sex with the same person? Ugh, that’s it, I’m never gonna have soulmarks.”

“Coulda told you that already,” Cindy muttered. Michelle stifled a snort.

“– No, you can’t tell whether or not someone is a virgin based on their marks,” Coach Wilson droned on, ignoring the interruption. He turned the page on the pamphlet he was reading. “No, it’s not just parent-child and sexual relationships that mark, it can happen with long friendships too. No, someone unmarked isn’t necessarily alone or unloved any more than someone with lots of marks is guaranteed to be happy.”

“Yeah, otherwise Penis wouldn’t look like he’s trying not to cry,” Flash observed. “Dude, _three_ sets of silver marks? We should call _you_ Flash.”

Peter stood up so fast he knocked his desk over. Flash squeaked. Coach Wilson stopped reading.

Peter clenched his fists and glared at Flash, tight-lipped. The room was so quiet Michelle thought she could hear her own heartbeat. Who knew Peter could be intimidating? When had he gotten _built_?

Peter slowly forced his fists open, righted his desk, then picked up his backpack and walked out without a word to anyone.

Coach Wilson cleared his throat. “OK, got a PSA,” he muttered, and started the clip.

Michelle hardly listened as Captain America’s familiar voice drowned out her classmates’ whispering. “So, you want to know about soulmarks! First, let’s do some math to explode the myth that there’s only one possible soulmate for you. We’ll start with the population of the world –”

Michelle grabbed her own backpack and went up to Coach Wilson’s desk. “I’m going after Peter,” she informed him. She stared him down until he nodded, then strode out the door.

Peter hadn’t gone far, just to the bench outside the class Ned was in.

She sat down a few feet away, holding onto her backpack straps for lack of anything better to do with her hands. “Um,” she offered. “Hey.”

He was staring at the silver parent-marks on his palms. He sighed and moved his head a little in acknowledgment.

“Flash is a total ass. Everybody knows it.” What could she even say? Not like she knew Peter all that well. Skinny, smart, always sick - except apparently not skinny, and he hadn’t been sick much the past few months either, had he?

He blinked and looked up. “Oh, Flash. Yeah,” he said absently. “He is.” He sighed and brushed his fingertips over the small silvery marks behind his ears. “I just – I didn’t realize these had gone silver already.” He looked at his hands again, with their marks shaped like adult hands grasping his: a common pattern. “After my parents – these took almost a full year to look like this. It’s only been a month since Ben …” He pressed his mouth shut again, face working.

He was trying not to cry. OK. Michelle could work with that; she had no idea what she’d do if he did. Run away like a coward, probably. “So, um, tell me about Ben’s marks,” she said, looking for a related but happier topic, then mentally kicked herself. You didn’t ask a near-stranger about silver marks. You didn’t ask a near-stranger about marks, period.

Peter didn’t seem offended, probably because he’d already had his loss thrown in his face. He drew a steadier breath. “Whenever I got upset, he’d tap me there and say ‘I got two ears, kid, I can do a lotta listening.’” Peter’s mouth quirked in a half-grin – how had she never noticed his smile before? He turned his left arm out to show her the inside of his elbow. Two small hearts, green and fluorescent pink, had been drawn there in marker. “The pink is his and the green is my aunt – I’ve been with them since my parents – we kept it up even after we got real marks.”

“I don’t have any silver marks,” Michelle said slowly, “but I kinda wish I did – ugh I mean not like that, I’m sorry, I’m a dork. Just, my Pop-Pop died last year, and I miss him a lot. I wish – he used to call me Chelly-Bean – if you tell anyone I _will_ murder you – I used to imagine I had a mark from him hugging me.”

Peter sniffed, but it sounded more reflective than desolate. “What’s your favorite color?” he asked, rummaging in his backpack.

“Black.”

He nodded, not even raising an eyebrow. Points to him; her mother was still trying to convince her being a feminist didn’t mean she had to scorn pink, which _fine_ , she _knew_. “Gimme your hand?”

She raised her own eyebrows, but scooted closer and held out her right hand. He set it palm-up on his backpack and bent over it with the black marker. She looked at the top of his head while the marker’s soft tip skated lightly over her palm. It tickled, but she kept her hand still.

After a moment he sat up. “Hope you like black licorice.”

He’d drawn a jelly bean on her palm. She swallowed. She didn’t cry about Pop-Pop anymore – and even if she did, no matter how kind Peter was being she wasn’t about to cry in front of him – but for a moment her eyes burned. She closed her hand around the mark. “He used to save them for me.” She let Peter see her smile, just a little. “Thanks.”

He gave her the marker. “It’ll wash off, if you don’t want anyone seeing it. But if you want it there …” He shrugged. “I don’t use the black that much anyway. Um, thank you too.”

She stood and offered him her hand. He took it, pulled himself up, then let go immediately with a blush. Her palm tingled. “C’mon,” she said, “we’re missing out on Captain America doing arithmetic.”

### Peter

Liz said yes! She said _yes_. Homecoming! Him and Liz! Liz and him!

Peter floated through the halls on a cloud of _yes_. Liz was so amazing. He was tingling all over. Was this what May had told him about, how her skin started tingling a little bit where her marks from Ben were going to be, years before they actually showed? Had Liz even touched him anywhere? He couldn’t remember. Could this be it though, could this be the start of being soulmates? Liz was _so_ amazing.

* * *

Peter forced himself to cross the dance floor to her against a hollowness of _no_ sitting in his belly. Can you say “I think we could be soulmates but I have to ditch you at Homecoming to stop your supervillain dad” to the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen? What do you say next? “Um, sorry, maybe we can grab ice cream after”? “I want to spent my life visiting him in jail with you”?

His mouth said words. “Sorry” was the only one that mattered.

## 4

### Peter

“Seven minutes to drop point, Peter, is the suit ready?” Happy glanced back from the cockpit.

“Three minutes. I can do it.” Peter looked at the live news feed of the Tower Bridge and swallowed. His stomach muscles were so tight he could hardly breathe. MJ was there somewhere, and Ned – he blinked and grabbed a pen. Next to the nearly-worn-off pink and green hearts, he hastily scrawled an Iron Man mask. A fedora. After a moment’s hesitation, biting his lip, a jelly bean.

The fabricator whirred open. He tossed the pen down and reached for the suit.

### MJ

The hollow of her throat tingled where the broken black dahlia pendant rested. Probably just a sharp edge irritating the skin. She moved it, careful not to disturb the dork sleeping with his head on her shoulder, though if he could sleep through takeoff he’d sleep through anything.

## 5

Music from the Winter Formal dance echoed down the hall. Peter sighed in relief as they got further away. “Thanks for ditching,” he said. “I know you were having a lot of fun.”

“I was,” MJ agreed. “You were getting noise-overload, though. ’Sides, I’m still having fun.” She pulled him in as the music changed to something slow.

“Me too.” Peter ghosted his mouth over MJ’s skin; she tangled her fingers in his hair. She shivered at his breath warming the hollow of her throat. He smiled and arched his neck into her hands.

## 6

### MJ

“So, um.” MJ kicked her heels against the side of the building and wiped condensation from her milkshake cup across her face. There was a tiny breeze this high up, but it was still miserably hot. “We gonna talk?”

Peter sat on the parapet next to her, accepted his milkshake, and deactivated his mask. He sighed, nodded, and took a huge gulp of double-chocolate-peppermint. “Kinda impressed we put it off this long,” he admitted. “It’s, what, three days til your move-in?”

She side-eyed him. “Don’t pretend you don’t know to the hour, and exactly how many kilometers from MIT to Columbia.”

He shrugged, grinning. “Too many.” He rubbed his right thumb over the suit fabric on the inside of his opposite elbow, but stopped when MJ’s eyes followed the movement.

She sighed. “Peter, I know you’ve been drawing a black jellybean next to May’s and Ben’s hearts.”

He twitched. “Um. Not all the time, because that seemed … presumptuous? Um. Just.” He lowered his voice but spoke faster. “Just when I go up against something I’m … worried about.”

MJ blinked, then sat up straight and glared at him. “So when you promised rhino guy was no big deal, or the bank-robbers with the weird gas weren’t a problem, or May and I shouldn’t worry about the rabid were-ducks in Central Park – all those times instead I should’ve paid attention to whether you snuck off somewhere with a marker before you left because you wanted my mark on you _in case you died_? _Ugh_ , so help me, if this wasn’t coconut-ginger I would dump it on your damn head right now, _Peter_.”

Peter cleared his throat. Opened his mouth. Shut his mouth. Took refuge in his milkshake, then paused, eyed it sadly, took one more enormous mouthful, and handed it meekly to MJ, putting his head in easy dumping range.

She snorted and handed it back. “Fuck off, dork.”

He drained it. “I, um, I drew a thing …” He showed her on his phone: a simple doodle of a web.

She knew what this had to be.

“If … if you want, I could … draw it on you?”

Her amusement was sliding off her face. Her skin felt cold.

“Somewhere you could see it, and reach, if you wanted to keep it …” Peter trailed off.

MJ drew a breath. “I love you.”

“But …” He swallowed.

She shook her head. “ _And_. I love you _and_ I’m not ready for this.”

He was looking at his hands. She grabbed the nearest, finished her milkshake impatiently and tossed it into the trash after Peter’s. “Peter, I know what drawing those symbols means to you. I think about us being soulmates, too. I really, really like you. It scares me how much.”

He played with her fingers. “Why does it scare you?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding me? I don’t even know who I’ll be a year from now, much less four. I don’t know what I’ll want or need. Right-Now MJ hasn’t been talking to you about any of this because she’d rather be kissing you, and she’s scared as hell of making the wrong decision for Future MJ.”

He was listening; he always did. “I trust Future MJ. Whoever she’s gonna be, I’ll want to be with her as badly as I want Right-Now MJ.”

“What if Future MJ falls in love with her roommate, or chooses a career that takes her overseas, or decides she doesn’t want a soul-mate?”

“Then Future MJ will be honest about not loving me anymore, or we’ll talk about being open, or I’ll bring her tea and sympathy for her crush on a straight girl and we’ll make out to take her mind off it. We’ll be long-distance or I’ll follow her or we’ll break up then. We’ll figure out if we’re going to be partners with no soul-mate expectations, or just friends, or if what Future MJ needs is me not in her life at all anymore.” He half-smiled. “I hope not that last one.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah, me too.” She closed her eyes. “I just – I’m scared to close doors without even knowing what’s behind them. I don’t – we have something really good, right? I’m scared to ruin it with expectations, too.”

Peter held her hand, but loosely. “ _I’m_ scared to lose you. And that I’ll drive you off or hurt you if I cling too much. I want Right-Now MJ and Future MJ, but I want you to get what you need.” His mouth quirked, and he amended, “ _And_ I want you to get what you need.”

She smiled slightly. “When I was seven, my mom signed me up for swim camp. I was scared of the water and the other kids and I didn’t want to go. Pop-Pop let me sit next to him and tell him all about it, then he rubbed my back and said, ‘How ’bout you decide what you want instead of what you’re afraid of? Do you want to make new friends? Do you want to know how to swim so you can cannonball and splash your Pop-Pop?’” She snorted. “I went, then I made my mom sign me up for every week for the rest of the summer.”

The breeze had cooled off enough to be almost pleasant. Peter scooted closer, leaning in just enough that their arms touched. “So if you felt safe, what would you want?”

MJ paused. Could she really.

Peter watched people walking along several stories below. He didn’t nudge her, or sigh.

What the hell. If she wasn’t safe being honest with Peter, then who was she safe with and what was the point, anyway? “I’d want us to keep being in love, and I’d want to fall in love with, like, three or four or twenty other people, and then in a few years when I’m more sure about what I want for my life, then figure out what to do. And if I don’t have to worry about losing you, then I’d want you to fall in love lots too. So if we choose each other then we know it’s for real and not just being too scared that there’s no one else.”

Peter put his head on her shoulder, angling his face into her neck. “Mmmmm … safe place …”

She elbowed him. “Are you sniffing me again?”

He burrowed. “Can’t help it if your skin smells so good.” He smiled against her neck. “OK, in my safe place I want you to have, just, all the love. All of it. Everybody should love you, they’d be silly not to.”

She pushed him off. “Inconvenient. Only so much of me to go around. Got things to do.” She cocked her head. “I can already draw some limits. No Brad. No supervillains.”

He nodded, ostentatiously serious. “That’s very good, MJ, look at you having a personal growth moment.”

“You’re gonna have a personal pushed-off-this-building moment.”

He put his head back on her shoulder. “When I’m not in my safe place, it’s harder to think about you being with other people. Or me. But I, uh, do a lot of things that aren’t safe?” He nudged her. “I can hear you rolling your eyes. I just mean, just because it scares me doesn’t mean I can’t deal with it.” He sat up to meet her eyes. “When I jump off a building, it’s for a reason and I’ve got webs so I don’t, you know, crash and die horribly. If we’re gonna be open to dating and loving other people, it’s for reasons – you brought up good ones but even if you couldn’t say why, I still want you to get what you need. Just, can we – like a web so we don’t crash – can we say no matter what, we’ll be honest with each other? No radio silence, no lies. I think I can be braver if I don’t have to wonder what’s going on with you.”

She idly scratched the hollow of her throat where her skin prickled. “Yeah. I’d feel better that way too. I don’t want to cheat on you or hide things from you. I want you to get what you need, too.”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck. “Good talk. Um, can we go back to kissing and figure out details later? We’ve only got two days, twenty-two hours and forty-five minutes til that's a lot harder.”

### Peter

He flopped on the couch to stare at the ceiling. The back of his neck tingled just before his phone buzzed.

_hey dork_  
_you ok? I know you miss Abhijit_

_yeah i guess it was just kinda sudden_  
_they all thought it was gonna be years before he took over_

_how’s he doing?_

_he made it home ok_  
_otherwise idk_  
_he said it would hurt too much to keep in touch so …_

_oh peter I’m so sorry that sucks_

_yeah_  
_tell me something about your day_

_um_  
_I dumped adam after he was all “one-penis policy” AND trash-talked yasmin…_  
_then I got home and SHE broke up with ME :( :(_

_what that stinks you two were awesome together_  
_also boo adam good riddance_

_yeah he started in about how we were meant to be together_  
_and he couldn’t wait to see our marks coming in_  
_still not sure where my life is going with that_  
_but not to mr possessive tell you what_  
_I thought yaz and I were good too but_  
_she was tired of competing against spiderman :/_  
_wouldn’t/couldn’t believe me that she wasn’t :(_

_I wanna give you a hug :(_

_Id take it but I want more than a hug ;)_

_Ill be in my bunk_

_why not in mine_  
_can you come see me this weekend_  
_you need a hug too_

_if you can put up with me doing lots of homework_

_yeah I got a paper to do_  
_liz is giving a talk at mit next week_  
_she asked me for your number. Ok to give?_

_she asked? huh wow. um yeah ok_  
_you’re the best_

_yep_

His neck tingled for the rest of the day. He tried not to think too much about what it might mean, and didn’t let himself draw a jellybean next to the hearts.

* * *

“Hey, Peter.”

She was as jaw-droppingly gorgeous as ever, and now seven years older than he was instead of two. He hoped she’d put his nervousness down to their history, and not to his desperate fear that he would either drool or accidentally call her MJ. “Hey, Liz. Great talk.”

“I thought I saw you sneaking in after it started! Thanks for coming.” She slid elegantly into the seat across from him.

“Sure. ‘Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships in a World of Superheroes, Aliens, Mutants and Soulmarks’ – of course – uh –” Oh, way to run straight into the elephant in the room. “Seemed personally relevant,” he mumbled, trying unsuccessfully not to blush. He reached for his water glass to distract himself.

She smiled mischievously. “For which one of us?” She outright laughed at the look on his face. “Peter, I didn’t ask MJ for your number so I could harass you about Homecoming, ok? I actually wanted to thank you.”

He blinked. “For what?”

“For my life.”

“Oh – I mean – that was – of course I wasn’t gonna let the elevator fall –”

She raised a hand to stop him. “Thank you for that too, of course, but I mean: thank you for stopping my dad, even though it meant leaving me at Homecoming. Thank you for saving his life. For not making your testimony against him any worse than it had to be. For your part in fighting Thanos – my mom blipped. My dad got out last month. I just – we all owe you.” She shrugged. “I even owe you my career, kind of. It was – all that – trying to figure out my dad – that got me into this. You’re a lot like him in some ways.”

Peter spit out his water, coughing. “I’m like _Vul_ \- your _dad_?”

She raised her eyebrows, amused. “If your central moral imperatives are involved, neither of you will stop until you’re forced to.” She cleared her throat. “Of course, his moral imperative is ‘protect my family’ and yours is ‘protect _everyone_ ,’ so it’s a good thing only one of you can lift an entire building off himself without help.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that.”

She smiled at him a little sadly. “My dad would never walk away from someone he thought he could become soulmates with to save hypothetical strangers who might be harmed if he didn’t.”

Peter froze, then laughed, embarrassed. “You were my first real crush. I – maybe romanticized things a little.”

She shook her head. “Don’t apologize. I wondered too.”

He took a breath, unsure if the next words out of his mouth would be “do you think –” or “MJ and I –”

She shook her head very slightly. “I owe you thanks for another part of my life, too, Peter. Processing – all of that – helped me figure out what I need in a soulmate. Sand and I are getting married this summer. They’re – they’re as kind as you are, but _their_ integrity isn’t likely to lead to them getting killed by a supervillain.” Her smile was brief. “I handled ‘all of that’ by intellectualizing it into a career, and I love what I do, but in my personal life? Kinda over all the superhero alien drama. Really, _really_ over it.”

“MJ says sometimes she loves both of me and sometimes she loves me in spite of Spidey.” He almost clapped his hand over his mouth. Bringing MJ up right now was probably –

Liz was laughing. “MJ can handle all of you. But really, would you want someone to love you _because of_ Spider-Man?”

Peter grimaced. “I dated someone like that for a while. I thought they were just saying that to joke or flirt or whatever. When I realized they meant it … it was kinda gross. Shortest relationship I’ve ever – uh, second-shortest.” He grinned at her; she snickered. “MJ’s usually really sympathetic when I have a break-up but that time she just sent me an eyeroll emoji and ‘no shit Sherlock.’”

Liz cocked her head at him. “Now I know what to say when you and MJ finally –”

His phone buzzed with an Avengers alert. He read the text and groaned. “Some mecha-wing dude over the Bronx – oh god, promise me this isn’t your dad.”

“Not if he knows what’s good for him. Mom and I set him straight.”

Peter grabbed his things and stood to dash off, then paused, horrified, to look at Liz. “Uh – I’m so sorry –”

She burst out laughing. “God, Peter, go, save the Bronx, get Mecha-Wing Dude into rehab, I’ll see you on the news tonight.”

## 7

“I can’t believe the ‘super-romantic graduation-night date’ was bringing me back to this roof,” MJ groused, but she was smiling. “At least it’s not so hot this time.”

Peter handed over her milkshake. “This time they’re both coconut-ginger, so I’m safe.”

MJ smirked. “Is that what you think.”

“You’re plotting to dump yours on me and then steal mine, aren’t you.”

“Only if the need arises.” She settled herself comfortably on the parapet, leaning against Peter’s shoulder. “So, um: we gonna talk? I think that’s my line here.”

He shrugged. “Eh. Only if you’ve got something to say.” He ducked almost before she’d started to raise her milkshake threateningly.

She eyed him appraisingly. “You still drawing jellybeans?”

“Only before my thesis defense. Maybe once or twice while I was trying to get over Abhijit.” He cleared his throat. “Um, and before that thing with the mutant sewer alligators.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I thought there was only _one_ mutant sewer alligator.”

“And its four clones.” He coughed and busied himself with his milkshake.

She waited until he looked at her, sheepish. “ _Peter_.”

“I’d _like_ to draw a jellybean every day, is the important bit,” he said, attempting dignity. “And a web on you. If that’s what you want too.”

She folded her arms.

He dropped any pretense at humor. “Em, you made the right call last time. I’m so grateful for everyone I loved these last few years. There really are other people out there I could become soulmates with, but I look at Future MJ and I don’t want anyone else. Even Abhijit: he taught me there are people I might be _as_ happy with, but there’s no one I want more. But – _and_ – I still want Future MJ to get what she needs. So: what is that?”

MJ nodded, serenely confident. “I _did_ make the right call. I still love you. I don’t want to stop. So here’s what I need: if you would’ve had time to draw a jellybean, text me instead. I need to know you’re being as honest with me about the risks as you have been about the other people you’ve been with. I need you to deal with your fear of dying on me so you’ll do everything you can not to let it come as a total shock if it happens. And I need you to know I might not be done falling in love with other people.”

He offered her his hand; she laced her fingers in his. He smiled. “Is it weird if that last part actually makes me feel better? I don’t need to be with anyone else right now – I guess if that changes we’ll talk – but I still want you to have all the love you want. And – maybe I can deal with being scared to die and leave you if I know you won’t actually be alone?” He shrugged. “I just wanna build – keep building – the kind of relationship with you that soulmates have.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Whether we ever get real marks or not.”

MJ adjusted her necklace, brushing her fingers over the hollow of her throat, and smiled to herself. “Whether or not.” She pulled a black marker out of her pocket and reached for Peter’s arm.


End file.
